Mantras of animation

The Guide gets in an 'animated' chat with Academy Award winner, Darcy Prendergast

When you think of animation, you are likely to visualise images of dancing animals or dolls. To change such perceptions, Big Aims has organised a seminar titled Animation Magic by Australian animation guru Darcy Prendergast, founder and director of Oh Yeah Wow.

Darcy Prendergast will share his tricks of the trade

Prendergast will be sharing his knowledge of animation with Puneites today. He has directed countless award-winning music videos, commercials and short films. He was a lead sculptor and assistant on the 2004 Academy Award winner for the Best Short Animation -- Harvey Krumpet -- and on Adam Elliott's 2009 feature -- Mary and Max. "The animation industry, on a global scale, was always going to mature beyond dancing animals and happy meals at some point. It's got to as people become tired of repetitive content. We are seeing a massive shift in terms of people taking risks, twisted dark narratives, interesting and bold styles, etc. It's a positive evolution and one that will only broaden with time. It is a young medium."

We quiz him about his advise to aspiring animators and students studying animation and he says, "I encourage students to constantly design. Film, sculpt, paint, draw, stitch, sew, edit, compose, write, light, act, record. They are all necessary skills and the better your understanding of all of them, the better is your standing in the industry. I have hundreds of scripts that will probably never be made but it was great practice as a writer. It is about flexing those muscles as often as possible. Again, it comes back to creation."

Ask him about his favourite feature or short Indian animation film and he seems unsure, "I am sorry, I am extremely unsure! I have only seen a handful of them. I haven't watched enough to ascertain a favourite!"So, now all the aspiring animators in Pune know where to head to this Wednesday.